Friday, November 29, 2013

Our trip to Disney World was fantastic (and I plan to blog about it in depth soon)! It wasn't the same as it has been in the past, but it was a new kind of awesome! My poor spreadsheet was the biggest casualty!

Austin did a fantastic job working at his dad's company and got his first paycheck! We are going to open a checking and savings account for him this coming week so he can start saving for his first vehicle!

Austin's first semester class (Speech) is over and we're awaiting his final grade. He will be taking Debate in the new year.

Riley's just about done with the first semester of her classes. One class is already done and we have her grade - an A! She has the last classes next week.

And on the way home from a family party on Tuesday, Reece outlined her life plan for me in great detail, so that's all set! LOL

I am feeling great physically and am happy to be able to keep up with my off-season base-building workouts! I am going to try a few new things in terms of record-keeping for school to see if that helps me keep up with everything. I'm hoping returning to more paper and pencil stuff will enable me to keep my head about water. And then I can transfer it all to digital when I have time.

SO thankful for these people! It's not easy loving and living with a Niffercoo! :D

I'm also thankful that you have taken the time to stick with me and reading my blog! I am thrilled to be able to share the ups and downs of homeschooling, and autism, and epilepsy, and all of the other random stuff I write about here! Please don't forget to LIKE my Black Pearl Academy Facebook page. I only need 4 more likes to "get access to insights about my activity" and doesn't that sound like something I need to know?? :D

I truly hope you're all having a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend (if you're in America)!

Saturday, November 09, 2013

Yep, we just finished our first week of Term #2, which included starting some new books for literature (Frankenstein and Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde for Austin, and Tom Sawyer for Reece - Riley is reading Cry, the Beloved Country for her outside literature class) and biography (Queen Victoria for Austin, Alexander Graham Bell for Reece). Austin also started his study of chemistry.

Everything went well, and I'm excited about this new term. I'm especially excited because it's finally time for a break week! This year we did not take a break week every 6 weeks like we usually do because the big kids both want to work a summer job, and in order to do that, they need to be done with school by May. And in order to do that, we have to limit our breaks. It has been challenging, to say the least. Mostly for me. I didn't realize how much I relied upon that break week to decompress and regroup. But I lived through it - and the kids really pushed through and worked hard! I'm proud of them!

And I'm very excited about this coming week! We're going to Disney World, the girls and I anyway! Austin doesn't like Disney! ;) Instead, HE is going to work with his dad and get some invaluable job experience! He is so excited and ready to work hard!

I've got so much I want to share, but just not enough time right now. Time is so limited and often I only have time to post a blurb on my Black Pearl Academy Facebook page. So please "like" that page so you can keep up with the little day-to-day things we're doing!

I hope everyone has a wonderful week! Can you believe it's almost the middle of November already??